Why Jesus Christ HATES the Creeds of Christianity

When Jesus Christ and God the Father appeared to Joseph in the Spring of 1820, there is a part of the account that is almost universally overlooked. In Joseph Smith History 1:19 in response to the question of which Christian Church Joseph should join, Jesus Christ declares “All their creeds were an abomination in his sight.” We don’t often use the word ‘abomination’ these days. So, to ensure we have proper context, I looked it up in Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary, it reads: “Whatever is an object of extreme hatred, is called an abomination.” This means that Jesus opens up the entire Restoration by expressing His ‘Extreme hatred’ toward the Creeds of Christianity.

Remember, at this time Joseph Smith was on the verge of joining the Methodist Church. I can’t help but feel for him as he most likely had a degree of faith or love for the creeds. But Jesus opens the restoration by denouncing them, and over the next few years, Joseph would experience firsthand why Jesus Christ hates the creeds. Because Joseph dared to challenge the creeds of ‘Christianity,’ and its professors/ministers, they were outraged. They whipped up their followers into a frenzy of hate towards Joseph and the Saints. Leading to mobbings persecutions, and finally the martyrdom of the Prophet himself. All at the hands of so-called ‘Christians.’ No wonder near the end of his life, Joseph Smith expressed his feelings on the creeds in D&C 123:7-8, where you can see his mirroring of Christ’s attitude when he declares “they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell.”

These are extremely strong denouncements of the creeds. I want to dive into four reasons why I believe Jesus Christ HATES the creeds, why Joseph learned to hate them, and why you should too.
NOTE: I am not saying they don’t contain truth, even Joseph Smith said they did. Rather I am trying to explore plausible reasons why Jesus Christ would declare His hate for them in the opening act of the restoration.

1st. The Creeds Destroy God the Father.

One of the most common anti-Mormon tropes I hear is that “you have a different Jesus.” No, we don’t have a different Jesus we have an actual God the Father. Almost ALL of our beliefs regarding God the Father are directly in opposition to the creeds and the official teachings of Creedal Christianity. We often take our beliefs for granted and assume others believe the same thing. They don’t.

As Latter-day Saints, we believe that God the Father is a spirit clothed in an immortal and glorified body, just like Jesus Christ. But more than that, we believe that He is the literal Father of the spirits of all mankind. Not a figurative, metaphorical, or adoptive father. Our literal Father, and as He is our literal Father, we also believe we have a Mother too. We do not believe we are children of a single dad. That thought makes reason stare! In the Family Proclamation, the prophets boldly declare that each of us are “beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents.” Just as real and literal as our Heavenly Father, we believe we have a Heavenly Mother too. And because we are their literal offspring, we can become like Them!

Creedal Christianity rejects the idea that God the Father has a body like Jesus Christ. They declare Him unknowable and that He is a spirit alone, deprived of a body. They reject any notion that we are literally spirit children of God. Furthermore, they reject the notion or idea of a Heavenly Mother entirely! They teach that we are depraved and fallen creatures that God has taken pity on and that we can be adopted by the grace of Christ and made honorary children of Christ if we accept Him as our Lord and Savior. And as an adopted child, it would be unthinkable to believe we could actually become like God, rather, we should be content with being a servant of Christ in the kingdom.

Accurate was the assessment by Bruce R. McConkie: “To most people now living, God is unknown and unknowable. Some consider him to be a mystical spirit essence that fills the immensity of space; others feel that the laws of nature and the forces that govern the universe are God; while yet others are not sufficiently concerned with spiritual things to give any serious thought to matters pertaining to Deity. Even the religious creeds of almost the whole body of modern Christendom state flatly that he is uncreated and incomprehensible, that he is a spirit without body, parts, or passions, and that in some inexplicable way he is three gods and yet one God.
We know him, however, as a living and real being, a personage of tabernacle in whose image man is created. He is our Father in heaven, meaning, as Paul expressed it, that “we are the offspring of God” (Acts 17:29), that he is “the Father of spirits” (Heb. 12:9); that he is the parent of the intelligent, sentient beings who dwelt with him during their pre-mortal or first estate.”
CR: Apr. 1967 p. 70

2nd The Creeds Exalt the Damned Status of Satan.

Core to Latter-day Saint theology is the idea that there was a war in heaven. Satan, a spirit son of God rebelled against Him. Satan sought to supplant God the Father and waged war. He lost and was subsequently cast out. For his act of treason against God the Father, he was damned for all eternity.

Why is this important? Well, when you realize the two main punishments of his rebellion are the permanent denial of a body, and the inability to ever become a literal father, and then realize that the creeds teach that God is just a spirit without a body, and is not our literal father, you realize that the creeds of Christendom literally exalt the damned status of satan to that which he coveted, Godhood. Read that again, Satan through the creeds has literally turned his damned state into the Creedal Christian concept of God.

3rd. Creeds Destroy Exaltation, the Importance of Marriage, and Make Room for Sexual Perversions.

Latter-day Saint theology is clear, marriage is vital to exaltation, or becoming like God. From D&C 132, we learn that the defining difference between godhood and being a ministering angel is the ability to have spirit children, and that ability requires a husband and wife who are married in the temple according to God’s law.

Yet despite the clear teachings of the prophets and scriptures, when you ask many Latter-day Saints “What is Exaltation?” They will reply with “Becoming like God!” When you press further, they often give a Creedal Christian view of godhood. “It is being all-powerful.” Because the creeds and Creedal Christianity have stripped away every single thing that makes God the Father both a God, and our Father, we fail to realize as Ezra Taft Benson taught: “Exaltation is eternal fatherhood and eternal motherhood.” (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, 548). Turning it just into being powerful.

But worse, this decoupling of fatherhood, motherhood, and marriage from exaltation has led many to ask, “Why not gay marriage?” Why not allow this? Why not allow people to transition genders? Because the very concept of what god is has been corrupted and stripped of its essence (fatherhood & motherhood), the downstream effects are championing sexual perversion within the Church. Literally, anyone understanding our theology, that our entire purpose of being on earth is to become like our Heavenly Parents, would flatly reject these false ideals, ideologies, and sexual perversions.

4th The “Fruits” of Creedal Christianity Is Often Vile Gatekeeping

Jesus Christ taught that by the fruits we can judge things. The fruits of the creeds and Creedal Christianity are not merely doctrinal subterfuge against God the Father, but active persecution of the saints. Now, it is important to note: when I speak of this persecution, it is not from followers of Christ, but of the creedalists. Those whose love and loyalty to the creeds inspire them to hate and attack Latter-day Saints online for not believing the creeds. From apologists to simple trolls on social media; gatekeepers who swear at and attack Latter-day Saints for their biblical views that reject the creeds.

But worse than the online gatekeeping, is the nasty gatekeeping we see in actual day-to-day interactions. Ask any Latter-day Saint homeschooler outside of Utah, and they will all share some variation of being denied or kicked out of a homeschool co-op or other ‘Christian’ group when someone realizes they are not a creedalist despite their professing faith in Christ. These stories are not rare, nor are they often pretty as the ‘Christian’ creedalists take no pity and act in a completely unchristlike manner in attacking these moms and kids. All for the crime of not swearing loyalty to the post-biblical and extra-biblical creeds. Think about that. The creeds are literally causing ‘Christians’ to persecute the actual saints of Christ. But not just the men, they primarily target the women and the children! If you don’t believe this is reality, go ask a Latter-day Saint homeschooling mom.

If this is how the creedalists treat the women and children who are humbly trying to follow Christ, one can’t help but wonder how quickly they would’ve turned against Christ Himself for contradicting the creeds. Like the Jews, they too would’ve cried out “Crucify Him!” As that is publically what they do to His Church in this day.

A final word to Latter-day Saints

If you are a Latter-day Saint, I hope you too have followed the example of Jesus Christ and now view the creeds as the abominations that they are. I hope you can now see their corrupting influence and distortion of the doctrine of God the Father. And their pernicious and cancerous swapping of exaltation with the damned status of Satan. And not least of all to their zealot-like believers who attack and gatekeep all the Christians who don’t believe in the post-biblical creeds. When you are attacked for following the biblical Jesus and the biblical teachings of Christ by the creedalist, take comfort, for so too did the Jews to the first Christians. It will work together for our good and the glory of Christ!

I believe that the creeds push the honest seekers of truth away from Christ. I agree with Hyrum M. Smith, who taught: “I believe the Lord is now using their ministers and learned men to destroy the faith of the people in these false creeds which have erroneously been called the churches of Christ. Let men go on and do their work; let them persuade mankind that there is no God; that there is no such thing as the immortality of the soul; that there is no revelation; nor prophecy; that there is no such thing as authority — only that authority which men themselves assume. Let them go on and do this until men have lost faith in all these false religions in which they have had faith, heretofore. I see in it the workings of the hand of God, for they will be less satisfied then than before they were undeceived. And they will look elsewhere to satisfy that which within them cries out for something that they know not of; and where will they look? They will look here and there; they will run to and fro, and, as predicted, they will not find it among the organizations which have been established by men and which have been perpetuated by the authority of man. But they will continue to look, to search and to seek for the truth, and the Lord will influence and guide them, and they will, in time, discover the truth where the truth is, and that is in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, — the Church of God, founded by the power of God, which enjoys the authority of the Lord, namely, the Priesthood”
GC: Oct. 1909 pp. 73-74

A final word to all else:

If you are not a Latter-day saint, I want to echo the words of a prophet of God: “Your Lord Jesus Christ pleads with you: My true Church is restored to earth with my saving doctrines. I have placed in authoritative positions apostles and others divinely called, and in leadership a prophet who today receives my divine revelations. Churches are many, but they are churches of men, not mine. Creeds are numerous, but they are not of my authorship. Organizations are everywhere, but they are not organized nor accepted by me. Pretended and usurping representatives are legion, but I called them not; nor do I recognize their ordinances. My second coming is near at hand… I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne… He that hath an ear let him hear. (Rev. 3:20-22.) This testimony I bear, in the name of Jesus Christ our Master. Amen.”
Spencer W. Kimball
CR: Apr. 1958 p. 17

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